Prince Harry describes Forces postal system as PANTS

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Midshipman

The media reports this morning that Prince Harry was sent a Card by his brother William before Christmas which only arrived three weeks ago. BAFF are currently making enquiries regarding the efficiency of the postal system do we have any other pants episodes?

Banned

War Hero

Having been on a 'liason visit' to Millhill I've seen the cause of some of the problems.
Picture the scene, there is one of those rack things (technical term) that mailsacks are placed in to keep them open. Now this thing is a 4x3 grid arrangement, with one sack in each slot, each sack with a different ships name attached (in alphabetical order).
The less than motivated staff are throwing letters into the sacks from 3 or 4 feet away. None of these lot are professional basketball players and a fair few of the letters miss, landing in the mail sack of other ships. Not to worry, they'll get forwarded on no doubt.
This could explain why Sovereign used to get a lot of mail intended for the Southampton. (And once even the Cornwall, now that was a terrible shot!)

GCM

probably just as crap as the one the rest of us have to put up with - nice to see that we all suffer equally. My grandad was a postie (as well as serving in WW1 & WW2) he would turn in his grave if he knew what went on these days.

War Hero

GR: Not quite the same; if Royal Mail is mishandled it only has to go back to a local regional Sorting Office and re-distributed within a day or two. If Forces' mail is mishandled it may often have to travel half way around the world only before it is returned to BFPO London (now relocated to RAF Northolt in Ruislip, Middlesex) then re-distributed to its correct address. This can often take several weeks, depending on the Unit's programme or location.

For example, here in Diego Garcia I rarely expect my mail from the UK (or US) to arrive within at least three weeks, usually four. Assuming the BFPO sorting office staff have thrown it in the right bag... 8O

GCM

GR: Not quite the same; if Royal Mail is mishandled it only has to go back to a local regional Sorting Office and re-distributed within a day or two. If Forces' mail is mishandled it may often have to travel half way around the world only before it is returned to BFPO London (now relocated to RAF Northolt in Ruislip, Middlesex) then re-distributed to its correct address. This can often take several weeks, depending on the Unit's programme or location.

For example, here in Diego Garcia I rarely expect my mail from the UK (or US) to arrive within at least three weeks, usually four. Assuming the BFPO sorting office staff have thrown it in the right bag... 8O

sorry mate you haven't kept up with the news for once. Sorting offices who pile the stuff up because they don't have the staff to deliver it, regular cases of mail being lost or destroyed. I don't know anyone who hasn't had major probs with the post. I've had 2 items go completely missing and no sensible answers. I'm afraid for once your giant intellect missed something ...

War Hero

War Hero

GPO is crap too I`ve only had cheques and proofs for yellow pages go missing, now sorted. Its a bit of a bugger and knocks the the hell out of moral if youre expecting a mailie and dont get it. Some people got realy grumpy if a "family gram" went missing on patrol.

War Hero

The good old days - I always wondered how BFPO managed to cope when every ship I was in from time to time ended up somewhere quite other than the place I had thought we were going to (but what are warships for if they can't be instantly diverted to somewhere unexpected). I can only remember two major cockups, a bag arriving on board which turned out to contain only letters we had written a week before, and a bag going completely missing which was found under the postmaster's desk in a Sardinian backwater used by the RN for painting ship - this latter foul-up not BFPO's fault anyway.

Nowadays I only have one correspondent I regularly use snail mail for & he's 91. But then I was using a form of e-mail to talk to people abroad in '71 within my afterlife employer's company. Only we didn't know it was called e-mail then.

War Hero

Badgeman

It was very variable when I was in Basra in the autumn: letters and parcels took anything from three days to four weeks to get through.

I sent a load of Christmas parcels out to friends in Iraq and Afghanistan in early December after I'd come home and not one of them arrived in time for Christmas. One of them took until the end of January to get to Baghdad.

Even so, it's still a better service than the AFPO system.

As an earlier poster said, thank God for email. However, most of the lads and lasses in Afghanistan have no access unless they are in one of the bigger camps.

Midshipman

Sorry all I started this thread and then had to lead a walk today for the local walking group . It seems to me that the overall picture is pretty mixed. We don't have an over watch body like Post watch in the UK which monitors standards within the service. If a service is to work efficiently and is to be kept on its toes it seems to me that despite the difficulty of delivering service mail in operational locations it does need independent scrutiny otherwise there is a tendency for it to become a self congratulation society which sets its own standards and is responsible to no-one. Any thoughts on this? There seems to be a mixed reception on ARRSE regarding this issue with one saying it takes up to 50 days for mail to reach Cyprus.

War Hero

Yes but the difference is you are inconvenienced, but still have access to phones e-mail/internet etc, Perce, Royal and Mr Crab rely on the forces postal system to work correctly so that they can receive morale boosting messages and or gifts from families and friends.
Big difference to you not getting your Littlewoods mail order delivery or whatever, no?
NZB

Yes but the difference is you are inconvenienced, but still have access to phones e-mail/internet etc, Perce, Royal and Mr Crab rely on the forces postal system to work correctly so that they can receive morale boosting messages and or gifts from families and friends.
Big difference to you not getting your Littlewoods mail order delivery or whatever, no?
NZB